


Making the Man

by spuffyduds



Category: Smallville
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-04
Updated: 2010-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-05 18:25:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/pseuds/spuffyduds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Set in the first season.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Making the Man

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the first season.

Lex can hardly stay away from the second floor windows on Saturday mornings, when the farm delivery comes. He sights the truck far down the serpentine drive and hurries downstairs, and then has to pretend to be absorbed in buffing spots off the decorative suit of armor with his tie, so the new butler doesn't notice that he's waiting by the door. _Jesus, this is pathetic,_ he's thinking, but then the doorbell rings and the Jeeves-of-the-month lets Clark in, and in a burst of cliché he brings the sunshine in with him, the door swinging wide to light the dark foyer and his crate of vegetables just glowing, and Lex lets the light wash over him and smiles.

***********************************************

When the car hit the water there was fear, and cold, and—-he doesn't like to remember this--relief, too. Some little part of him went back to the Bible-school stories his first nanny told him; some little part thought he was going to see his mom. And then there was pain and drowning and panic and black. And when he came out of the black there was a savior, backlit and blue-eyed, and he thought foggily, "Wow. Jesus is _pretty_."

*********************************************************

Clark does the usual howyabeen. Lex hands him the money before he finds a spot to set down the crate, so he can watch Clark shift to holding it under one arm, an easy muscle-rolling move that makes Lex's stomach shivery. He jokes that with organic veggies you pay extra for the bugs, and Clark laughs, but shifts his feet on the mat and isn't making for the door in his usual routine. "No more deliveries today?" Lex says. "Feel like a drink, uh, some...lemonade?" Oh, _that_ was smooth. Remind him that he's underage. Remind _yourself_ that he's underage.

"Actually," Clark says, "I was hoping for some…advice. Instruction." Lex blinks at him. There is no way in hell that sentence is headed where he would love for it to be headed, but hey, he can dream. "I think I've finally—-almost—-managed to ask Lana out." Oh. "And it would help—-I mean, I think I'd be more—-up for it—if I had some clothes that weren't..." he waves vaguely at his jeans and plaid shirt. "Well, that weren't _me_."

"Um," Lex says, "I don't think anything of mine is going to fit you."

 

******************************************************************

Swinging both ways had seemed like an entirely practical decision when Lex spent his high school years at a boys' boarding school—-hey, love the one you're with. But somewhat to his surprise he'd kept it up, and enjoyed it, afterwards. He'd always assumed he was somewhere near the straight end of the Kinsey scale, though, because the boys he was attracted to were...girly. Sort of languid and drapey; silk-shirt boys. It drove Lionel completely crazy when he brought them home. So he brought them home a lot.

Since he'd been on his own, though, there'd been more women than men. And then a very not-languid, not-drapey boy pulled him out of a cold river.

*******************************************************************

"Oh---no, no, I didn't mean--I just thought maybe you could _tell_ me what to buy. I mean, I've got money. I've saved up," Clark says rapidly, and Lex gives himself a mental asskicking because of course he's just stirred up one of the dreaded Jonathan Kent bete noires. No charity from _anybody_, ever, especially not from a Luthor. (It amuses Lex to call it a bete noire, because he's pretty sure Jonathan wouldn't know what that means.)

"Of course," he says, and leads Clark back to his dressing room. "I'll hold things up to you, and you see what you might want to get in your size." _Although probably, in your case, not bespoke from a tailor in Hong Kong._ He gets a little thrill from eyeing Clark up and down lingeringly, without the usual surreptitiousness. And at the same time his brain is screaming at him because, _Jesus, you're going to help him buy clothes for a date with LANA? Oh, what a great idea, do everything you can to facilitate this. Jumpstart his truck for him and buy him a pack of condoms! Idiot._

But, because there is nothing else he can do, he smiles at Clark, one-sided and a little sad, not that Clark ever catches on to that, and says, "I don't think I have any silk shirts in red or blue. Or plaid."

"Aw, now you're making fun of me," Clark grins. "Just 'cause I want to get a little gussied up." And the grin gets bigger, and Lex realizes dizzily that the "gussied up" was actually a tiny bit sarcastic. There was a little "this is something dopey that my father would say" there. God, he would never have said it that way when they first met. The gussied would have been entirely sincere. Lex doesn't know if that's high school and television and just generally growing up, or maybe hanging around with Lex himself has tarnished his cornfed a little.

Lex kinda hopes it's the latter, as it's all the tarnishing he's likely to get to do.

******************************************************************

He spent a lot of time with Clark afterward, telling himself it was gratitude, it was curiosity—-how _did_ he get me out of that wreck?—-even that it was some sort of sociological prep work for running a LuthorCorp factory; find out how the middle-class family works, get inside that blue collar. And he managed to fool himself until one day he pulled whatever big metal penis he was driving that week into the Kent barnyard and Clark was shooting baskets. That big brawny body so graceful, almost flying, with the sleeves cut off his plaid shirt and the beautiful overhead armcurve of the hook shot, and Lex sat stunned in his leather seat and thought, Oh, _fuck_. I'm in _love_. He sat there and counted the number of ways in which this was utterly wrong and impossible, not least among them being: PLAID. He leaned his head on the steering wheel, murmured to himself, "Ah, yes, it'll be happily ever after and "I'm a Lumberjack and I'm Okay," will be _our song_," and then he got out of the car and joined in the game. He hip-checked Clark as often as possible, and he kept his fucking mouth shut, then and ever after.

********************************************************************

"How about...navy?" he says. "Or burgundy? Won't take you too far out of your comfort zone." Clark grins at him, and he fetches various shirts, holds them up to Clark's chest. They seem to cover about the middle third of it.

"I can give you the name of some good shops in Metropolis," he says, once Clark has okayed burgundy silk. "Or," he adds with all the casualness he can muster, "I could take you around to them and we could make a day of it. Go to a ball game or something," he finishes, grabbing for something that sounds as—-guylike as possible.

"Hey, cool!" Clark says. "I gotta check with my dad." So _that's_ never happening, then.

Of course it isn't, _nothing_ is ever happening, and it SHOULDN'T, even if he weren't fifteen he's so—-happy and good, and Lex is so fucked up and no use to anybody and should just stay away from him, and the full knowledge of this hits him and he just kind of—-sags in place.

And for once Clark notices that all is not well, and says, "Hey, you okay?" Reaches out his huge hand and cups the side of Lex's neck, like he's going to hold him up by the skull somehow. His hand is calloused but so warm and Lex closes his eyes, just soaks it up for a moment, because that's it, he can't keep doing this anymore. He takes in those few seconds of warmth and touch and affection, because it's going to be all over now; better for both of them. He opens his eyes, lets everything show in them like he never does, opens his mouth to say, what? Probably "I love you, RUN."

He looks up at Clark, tries to speak, but nothing is coming out. And Clark looks confused and then suddenly...not. "Oh," Clark says, "you...I mean, I…"

Lex waits for Clark to bolt for the door, waits for the warm hand to leave his neck but it doesn't. Clark just keeps looking at him, and then...oh, god, pulls him closer, leans down awkwardly and kisses him.

It's a clumsy kiss, chapped farmboy lips bumping into his way too hard. It's graceless and beautiful, and Lex is drowning.

 

\--END--


End file.
